Nearly Half of Americans Believe God Created Humans, Survey Finds

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Forty-six percent of Americans hold the creationist view, believing God created humans as they are today within the past 10,000 years ago, a new Gallup survey has found.

An additional 32 percent believe in the "theistic evolution" view that humans evolved under God's guidance, Gallup reported Friday. Those who hold the secular evolution view are just at 15 percent.

Adding the numbers of those who hold the creationist and theistic evolution views, some 78 percent of Americans today believe that God had a hand in the development of humans in some way, the USA Today/Gallup survey noted.

Gallup's editor-in-chief, Frank Newport, observed that the prevalence of the creationist view remains unchanged for three decades.

"Despite the many changes that have taken place in American society and culture over the past 30 years, including new discoveries in biological and social science, there has been virtually no sustained change in Americans' views of the origin of the human species since 1982," Newport underlined.

Gallup had its first survey on the origin and development of human beings in 1982.

The average of those who believe in the creationist view from the 11 surveys on the issue thus far comes to 45 percent, Gallup said. The 32 percent who chose the theistic evolution view in the latest survey is slightly below the 30-year average of 37 percent. And the 15 percent who chose the secular evolution view this time is slightly higher than the average of 12 percent.

The survey also found that the more religious the American, the more likely he or she is to choose the creationist viewpoint. Two-thirds of Americans who attend religious services weekly choose the creationist alternative, compared with 25 percent of those who say they seldom or never attend church, the survey found.

The survey results also showed that nearly 60 percent of Republicans identify as creationists, while 39 percent of independents and 41 percent of Democrats hold the same beliefs.

Gallup further found that Americans with postgraduate education are most likely of all the educational groups to believe in the secular evolution view. The creationist viewpoint "wins" among Americans with less than a postgraduate education, Newport said.

Results for the poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 10-13 with a random sample of 1,012 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.